Intro:
When we take the Bible at face value—word for word, line by line—we often inherit more fear than faith. But what happens when we look deeper, past the ink and into the meaning behind it all?
Another Layer of Light
Reflection:
Take the Bible literally, and what do you get?
A jealous God.
A flood that drowns the innocent.
Plagues. Slaughter. Retribution.
Death, commanded in the name of holiness.
A world punished for being human.
A divine being with all power, yet seemingly fragile enough to be threatened by our doubts, our desires, our differences.
And the believers? Too many cling to these tales as historical mandates, building a world of laws, judgments, and punishments from ancient warnings written by men trying to make sense of the divine.
But look again. Not with fear. Not with rigid certainty.
Read it as a story—a sacred mirror of humanity.
The jealous God becomes a metaphor for our own ego.
The destruction? A cautionary tale of what happens when we let pride and hate go unchecked.
The sickness and suffering? Echoes of how disconnected we’ve become from each other and the Earth.
Now turn to the New Testament—not as a sequel, but as a shift.
Jesus enters, not with vengeance but with vision.
He doesn’t preach death—He preaches life.
Not escape from Earth, but transformation of it.
He offers a new path—not one paved by fear and obedience, but by radical love, compassion, and inner work.
And yet…
Too many still choose the old way.
They long for the end.
They treat this life as a waiting room for heaven—
Even if that means turning Earth into hell to get there faster.
Why?
Because fear is easier than love.
Control is easier than trust.
Literalism is easier than transformation.
But Jesus didn’t say, “Follow me into despair.”
He said, “The kingdom is within you.”
He showed us a map not to an afterlife, but to a better way of living—here, now, together.
Insight or Takeaway:
To take the Bible literally is to often inherit its fear without understanding its purpose. But to read it symbolically—with eyes open and heart soft—is to find the path Jesus actually walked: one of healing, community, and personal transformation. We are not meant to wait for the end. We are called to co-create a beginning.
Closing Thought:
Heaven isn’t waiting.
It’s growing—when we choose love over power, understanding over dogma, and life over blind allegiance.
Will you help build it?
